Great Issues in Humanities

131H     CRN 6512                                              

10:10am – Noon  

Tuesday & Thursday

Dr. Gene Cline

We focus on discourse about crucial value issues, including the meaning of everyday life, our framing of decisions big and small: Should I stick to the salad bar? Should I take a very difficult class not required of me just for the intellectual thrill? When can I disagree with my church and still remain among the devout?  Perhaps each choice situation requires some "covering value" to guide us, if choice is to be rational. We might stick to the salad bar because we are trying to reduce overall fat in our diet. We might take an advanced mathematics class mainly because of the important cognitive gain from studying robust formal systems. We might question some of the church's recent additions to the list of mortal sins while still legitimately claiming to be among the faithful. 

There are big and abstract issues involved in choice-making too. How ought we to talk about the absolute value of human life when it is clear that we have limited resources to promote or to preserve human life.  What is the difference between sacrifices and trade-offs?  Are there values or relationships that ought never to be commodified (being a good friend, being a good mother or father, being patriotic)? Is it sufficient to think that our values and actions simply “fit” our reflectively acceptable lives, or is "fit" itself a code for a complex set of outcomes, actions and judgments that require deeper justification somewhere along the line?  Is it true that one can only live a valuable human life by being a part of an edifying human project that is larger than the self?  Are such projects fully adequate whether they are either religious or secular in nature?

Students are encouraged to develop their own philosophy of valuation, comparison, or action on topics of our mutual choosing. The professor is expected to be open to related topics from each student’s areas of interest.

Evaluation: A series of short papers (around three) and a final research paper.

Readings: Selected articles along with Ruth Chang’s Incommensurability, Incomparability and Practical Reason, Isaiah Berlins’ The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Benjamin’s Meaning in this Finite World of Human Lives, Voltaire’s Candide, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich,  Camus’ The Plague.